DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Declmmune Therapeutics is seeking support to develop a therapeutic product that will significantly reduce the debilitating and sometimes life-threatening result of severe burn injuries. Much of the final extent of tissue loss following burn injury is determined by the inflammatory response. The company has developed novel methods and compounds that inhibit inflammation at the initial site of tissue injury and significantly reduce the destruction of tissue surrounding the injury. Preliminary studies in animal models of burn injury have demonstrated a potential protective effect of one of these compounds, preventing the inflammatory destruction of skin tissue following burn trauma, resulting in healing without scarring or loss of hair growth. Over 75,000 patients per year are hospitalized for severe burn injuries, spending an average of two weeks undergoing painful and expensive treatments consisting of antibiotics, nutritionals and surgical care of the wound. The long-term objective of this project is to develop a therapeutic product that reduces the inflammatory destruction of skin tissue following burn injury and improves the outcome of the severely burned patient. Such a therapeutic could result in a wound which heals faster and with less need for skin grafting or other surgical intervention, reduce hospitalization costs and result in less permanent scarring and debilitating effects to the patient. Declmmune has developed compounds which block acute inflammation following ischemia/reperfusion injury in animal models. The objective of this proposal is to test these compounds in a mouse model of thermal burn injury with the following aims: 1) To demonstrate that one or more of these compounds is effective in improving the healing of an acute burn, 2) To determine how long after the burn injury the compound can be administered and be effective, and 3) To determine how severe a burn wound can still show improvement with the compound. The expected endpoint is the demonstration that in our animal model, one or more of these compounds can be administered immediately or shortly after a burn injury, either intravenously or topically, and the burn wound is shown to heal with significantly less scarring and loss of hair growth vs. the untreated animal. Phase II SBIR funding will support the development of the peptide compound into a drug candidate, preclinical testing and clinical evaluation in Phase I human trials.